Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction Review: Morris Collins Reads Avner Landes’ Novel The Delegation

We might start by asking: what is the goal of the Jewish historical novel? Once diaspora, pogrom, and Shoah have been commemorated, if not commodified, into narrative tropes, what is the Jewish novel beyond formal pastiche? And what would a parody of the Jewish novel look like? Is the parody of the Jewish novel, just…
Haunted Passages Short Fiction by Tobias Carroll: “Crude Thing”

Matteo called it a crude thing. In the end that’s what stuck with me the most. A crude thing, a visitation, something unspeakable. The crude thing, and where it took us all. I was there and Erin was there when Matteo shared what had happened, the three of us sitting at an empty table in…
Fiction for Side A: “Pearl Ring” by Ivy Grimes

Pearl Ring He and his betrothed moved into a cream-colored apartment in the outer ring of the concentric circles that made up the apartment complex. At the center of the complex was a swimming pool. He first noticed her pearl ring on their first trip to the apartment’s swimming pool when she took off her…
Side A Short Story: “Light ’Em Up” by Elizabeth Rosen

I spotted the guy as he came around the corner where the protest was happening outside the library on the plaza. Kind of scummy-looking, and not in a hipster way. White guy, wearing a plain Hanes T-shirt frayed at the collar and scuffed aviator sunglasses pushed up into unwashed hair. He was carrying a homemade…
Side A Poetry: “Dream Lover” by Paul Ilechko

Dream Lover The people you love the most are the ones who come to mind when you wake up in the darkness unsure of where you are and how you got to be thereit’s as stygian as the movie theater downtown in that brief period before the titles start an interval that feels almost dreamlike…
Poetry for Side A: “And Then It Died” by Heather Pegas

And Then It Died The presentation of the thing was … Spongy Friable Feathered, and Cold. (It had not been looking great for some time.) When we tried to pick it up, it was seen to … Cower, Whimper Hiss, and Snarl. (It gazed upon us in sad disbelief.) For the longest time, we had…
Bad Survivalist Poetry: “Dream Mechanics (non troppo)” by Haitian/Helena Jiang

(I know nothing about mechanics and would not. But I know that)It wasn’t you who played chess with me that time, and it wasn’t chessbut the kind of marbles that could and are better used as bullets,letting go of and no return, now that I come to think of it, like we used to playpingpong…
Side A Fiction: “Whirlpool” by Mark Wagstaff

Whirlpool The seaside painter paints what he sees. For tourists who scour the old town shops for authentic memories of their happy days at the beach. Who pay extra for signed and framed, to support artisan crafts. For friends, to settle small debts, though everyone knew these pictures never gained value. As presents, a quaint…
Side A Poem: “Preservations below the Moon” by Salvatore Difalco

Preservations below the Moon “We belong to the earth.”That’s the mushrooms talking.Someone else is sobbing in the shadows,hiding behind piano fingers. “I need to go home.”It ain’t happening, mate.You drove us into a treeand all the colors clashed. Let me tip you overand see if you can roll up again.It’s not winter yet.That explains the…